Optimization of Drinking Water Distribution Systems in Relation to the Effects of Climate Change

Proper water resources management involves the analysis and resolution of various optimization problems according to climate change effects on the availability and distribution of the resources themselves. Specifically, these conditions require the identification of new resource allocation optimization solutions capable of taking into account the water resource losses due to climate change scenarios. As is well known, Southern Italy is a region that is potentially very sensitive to climate change. In this paper, a 1717 km(2) area, corresponding to the province of Crotone, was analyzed as a study case. This area is characterized by a sufficient availability of resources as a whole as compared to the needs of the users, but has an unbalanced distribution of water through its various systems. After identifying water resource allocations in detail for this area, an optimization solution accounting for the expected reduced availability of water resources in the context of climate change was created and was compared with the optimization solution for current water availability.